Method and apparatus to broadcast content to handheld wireless devices via digital set-top receivers

ABSTRACT

Delivery of programming from a content provider to one or more hand held devices is effected via a set-top box (STB). The STB receives a transport stream, recognizes and de-multiplexes out a co-cast content association table containing a list of all available co-cast programming, and broadcasts table to the one or more hand held devices. Each hand held device displays the list and a program therefrom is selected. The selection is transmitted to the STB, which de-multiplexes out the selection from the delivered programming, and re-multiplexes the requested co-cast programming into a transport stream for broadcast to the requesting hand held device.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

The present invention claims priority from regular application Ser. No.10/839,783 filed on Apr. 27, 2004 and incorporates said application byreference as if fully set forth herein application is a reissueapplication of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/077,071, filed onMar. 13, 2008, in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, now U.S. Pat.No. 8,145,124, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.10/839,783, filed on Apr. 27, 2004, in the U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffice, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.60/465,986, filed on Apr. 28, 2003, in the U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffice, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference intheir entireties.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention herein discloses an exemplary method and apparatus totransmit content to a viewer's wireless hand held device as analternative or complement to TV viewing, using a digital satellite,cable or terrestrial set-top-box, an interne enabled set-top box, or ananalog broadcast with digital extraction and a wireless receptiondevice.

BACKGROUND

Referring to FIG. 1, currently the vast majority of digital televisionprogram providers, whether cable, satellite, or terrestrialtransmissions, transmit digital content from transmitting station 110 tosatellite 125 via channel 120. Satellite 125 retransmits the digitalcontent digital to one or more satellite dishes 130. Satellite dish 130may be a large satellite dish owned and operated by a local cablecompany, or it may a personal satellite dish serving one home. Thesatellite dish then transmits the content, usually via bi-directionalcoaxial cable 140, to each cable subscriber via set-top-box (STB) 150.STB 150 demodulates, or extracts information from, the digital signal inthe form of packets, or fragments, from the carrier, and performsdifferent signal processing techniques, i.e. error correcting,demultiplexing, descrambling and decoding to decode the digital programsin the form of video, audio or data, and converts such digital data toanalog form to playback such decoded signals on a TV set as shown inFIG. 1. Such connection between the playback device (TV) and the STB aredone with cables and use the analog signals produced by the STB.

Today, the relationship between a traditional set top box and a handheld device is limited to hand held devices, and more specifically, onlypersonal video devices, downloading, for later viewing, the contentwhich is currently being viewed from the set top box.

The instant invention represents an improvement over wide area hand heldreceivers utilizing the DVB-H or DMB standards. DVB-H, or Digital VideoBroadcasting, refers to the hand held version of DVB-T or Digital VideoBroadcasting-Terrestrial, which is a system for the Terrestrialbroadcast of signals destined for playback on hand held devices. DMB, orDigital Multimedia Broadcast, is a digital radio transmission system forsending multimedia (radio, TV, and datacasting) to mobile devices suchas mobile phones.

The current system has proven inadequate for most wireless applications,and in particular, to mobile wireless devices. Mobile wireless devicesgenerally fall under the category of hand held devices, and include cellphones, personal digital assistants (pda's), etc. These devices sharethe common characteristic of being small, easily transported, anduseable under most circumstances. Unlike portable computers and otherlarger mobile devices, hand-held devices do not require a surface to beplaced on, nor do they usually have fixed or removable, mass storagedevices such as hard drives, magneto-optical drives, or optical drives.The storage is generally limited to on-board memory or small removablememory such as flash media cards.

The difficulty with transmitting content, and in particular, rich media,defined as content exhibiting one or more characteristics of userinteraction, advanced animation, and or audio/video is that it requireslarge bandwidth and bi-directional communication for error correction.Small, wireless devices generally do not have the available bandwidth orsufficient power to reach the content distributor to request thatcorrupted packets of information be resent. Also, current systems do notprovide a practical means for reasonable interaction between a hand helddevice and a television program.

In the present invention, digital data encoded to be received by one ormore handheld devices for playback is inserted into the transport streamby the content provider and is transmitted via satellite, cable orterrestrial television digital channels to a STB and wirelesslyre-transmitted to a handheld receiver for decoding and playback usingmodern forms of wireless transmission such as Bluetooth, infrared,fast-infrared (FIR) or 802.11x. Such data can be digitally compressedaudio, video, program information, hypertext links, game files, etc.

In the present invention, the set-top box obtains instructions from thewireless device regarding what content to transmit to it. The STB usesthe index data supplied by the broadcaster embedded in the data streamto determine what content to transmit.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The instant invention relates to an exemplary method and apparatus fordelivering rich media to wireless hand held devices which do not havesufficient power or bandwidth to obtain the content directly from acontent provider. The instant invention solves this problem by sendingthe rich media to an STB which re-transmits the rich media to thewireless hand held device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates how the average end-user receives digital televisionprogramming.

FIG. 1a illustrates a high level schematic diagram of how digitalcontent is processed for transmission to an end-user.

FIG. 1b, is an example of a lower level schematic diagram of thecreation of a Transport Stream from packetized elementary streams.

FIG. 1c, illustrates a simplified, sample, MPEG compliant packet.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of how co-cast programming is multiplexedwith regular digital programming.

FIG. 3 illustrates multiple embodiments of the invention

FIG. 3a illustrates one embodiment of the invention where the STBdemultiplexes the requested co-cast programming from the TransportStream for transmission.

FIG. 3b illustrates one embodiment of the invention where the STBdemultiplexes all co-cast programming from the Transport Stream fortransmission.

FIG. 3c illustrates one embodiment of the invention where the STBre-transmits the entire Transport Stream.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram on one embodiment of the invention

FIG. 5 illustrates the control logic

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The invention herein disclosed provides an exemplary solution to theproblem of delivering rich media to wireless devices, and in particularto small hand held wireless devices for the purpose of interactivetelevision, more recently known as participation television. This isaccomplished by wirelessly enabling STB devices so that they canwirelessly transmit rich media to one or more hand held wireless devicesfor final storage and playback while simultaneously transmittingbroadcast quality content to a television set. The rich mediatransmitted to the wireless hand held device is known as Co-Castinformation. For purposes of this disclosure, co-cast content refers tocontent which is inserted into the transport stream and intended forplayback on devices other than a television set, e.g. wireless handhelddevice, laptop, personal, computer, pda, or mobile phone. Generally,co-cast information bears a logical relationship to the content that isbeing displayed on the television set, although that is not required.Alternatively, co-cast information may be wholly independent of thechannel being displayed on the television set. Such co-cast informationis defined here as the globally available co-cast content. Thebroadcaster who inserted the co-cast content into the transport streammay also place restrictions on its use. Some restriction may include, alimited period of time for accessibility, another example may include ageographic limitations, etc. An example of a limited time usage would beco-cast programming which directs the viewer to a voting website. Someof the more popular wireless protocols include infra-red, fastinfra-red, and 802.11x.

In another embodiment of the invention, the STB has multiple outputdesigned for wired connectivity, each output being capable oftransmitting different content.

Referring to FIG. 1a, FIG. 1a illustrates a high level schematic diagramof how digital content is processed for transmission to an end-user.Rich media, e.g. Content 160a, a movie, Content 160b a news cast,Content 160c, a Sports Program, and Content 160d, Data Tables, is firstencoded as elementary streams. An elementary stream is the output of avideo or audio encoder, and may only contain one type of data, e.g.audio, video, etc. In the MPEG communications protocol, elementarystreams are packetized, i.e. broken down into smaller pieces, i.e.packets. In a traditional MPEG system, each transport packet is 188bytes in length and contains a header, and a payload. The headercontains such index information as time index, program identifier, andpayload type (whether audio, video, program information, etc.). Inaddition to being packetized, the various elementary streams of eachprogram are combined or multiplexed (161) into Packetized ElementaryStreams 162a, 162b, 162c, and 162d. Each Packetized Elementary Streamcontains the combined data (audio, video, date, etc.) of a singleprogram, i.e. Content 160a, 160b, 160c, or 160d. When the packets reachthe set top box, the set top box demultiplexes, i.e. recombines thepackets into single programs, based upon the header information and isable to present the original content to the display unit. Thedemultiplexer also ensures the desired packets are displayed in thecorrect chronological order.

Each Packetized Elementary Stream is then further multiplexed (163) intosingle Transport Stream 164 carrying packets from each PacketizedElementary Stream 162a et al. A transport stream contains packetizeddata from multiple programs. Transport Stream 164 is broadcast to theconsumer and received by the consumer's set top box, STB 165, whichdemultiplexes Transport Stream 164.

Referring to FIG. 1b, FIG. 1b, is an example of a lower level schematicdiagram of the creation of a Transport Stream from packetized elementarystreams. Elementary Stream 170 represents Program 1. Elementary Stream175 represents a different program, i.e. Program 2. Multiplexer 180multiplexes or combines the three elementary streams that compose theaudio, video, and data of Program 1 into Single Packetized Elementarystream 180a. Similarly, multiplex 181, multiplexes or combines the threeelementary stream that compose the audio, video, and data, of Program 2into single Packetized Elemental Stream 181a.

Multiplexer 190 combines both Packetized Elementary Streams 180a and181a into Single Transport Stream 195 which is what is actuallybroadcast or transmitted to the end user's STB.

Referring to FIG. 1c, FIG. 1c, illustrates a simplified, sample, MPEGcompliant packet. Packet 198 is composed of 2 sections, Header 196 andPayload 197.

The content provider, i.e. Cable Company, Satellite Company, network,studio, etc. may elect to insert Co-Cast information into the transportstream. Like any other information in the transport stream, co-castinformation would be packetized with a header and payload. The headerwould include the traditional information associated with an MPEGheader. However, in addition, the header of co-cast information wouldinclude an identifier that the packet is a co-cast packet. The payloadof the co-cast packet is similar to the payload of a traditional MPEGpacket except that it may also include hypertext links, which is nottraditionally seen in MPEG packets.

In a regular MPEG based digital television system, the set top box knowsthe channel line-up by reading the Payload of the Program AssociationTable. Said Program Association Table traditionally has a programidentifier set to ZERO. In the instant invention, available co-castcontent is determined by the STB by reading the payload of the Co-CastContent Association Table, which is analogous to the Program AssociationTable. The Co-Cast Content Association Table is identified by theProgram Identifier in the header.

Referring to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 illustrates an example of how co-castprogramming is multiplexed with regular digital programming. Program 1or Packetized Elementary Stream 250, Co-Cast 1 or Packetized ElementaryStream 260, and Program 2 or Packetized Elementary Stream 270 aretransmitted to Multiplexer 280 which combines the three packetizedelementary streams into Single Transport Stream 290.

Referring to FIG. 3, FIG. 3 illustrates multiple embodiments of theinvention; STB 320 receives the content, in packetized form, via coaxialcable 310. STB 320 is wireless enabled to transmit and receiveinformation via wireless communications such as infra-red, fast-infrared(FIR), Bluetooth, or 802.11x. STB 320 is also configured with two ormore demultiplexers 330. Multiple demultiplexers allow differentreceiving devices to receive different content at the same time. Onechannel is transmitted via transmission means 340 to television set 350.One or more channels are transmitted wireless via wireless transmitter360 over one or more bi-directional wireless channels 370, to one ormore wireless devices 390. Each wireless device may receive differentcontent up to the number of demultiplexers available (minus thedemultiplexer being used by the television set). Such content can bestreamed for real time decoding by the handheld device, or downloaded todevices with enough storage capabilities for later decoding or playback.Bi-directional channel 370 allows the hand held devices to requestretransmission of corrupted packets from the STB 320, thus allowing richmedia to be transmitted. Bi-direction channels 370 may represent diversetechnologies, to wit, the STB 320 may transmit using one wirelesstechnology, and receive information such as data or commands via anotherwireless technology. In addition, the invention can communicate viaWiMax 381 or Wi-Fi router 382.

Referring to FIG. 3a, FIG. 3a illustrates one embodiment of the STB,transmitting co-cast content to the handheld device. The STB receivesTransport Stream 375, performs the demultiplexing and decoding on theincoming packet stream and broadcasts Transport Stream 375a which iscomposed solely of co-cast packets that were requested by each handhelddevice.

Referring to FIG. 3b, FIG. 3b illustrates a second embodiment of the STBtransmitting co-cast content to the handheld device. STB 320 acts as arouter, and broadcasts all packets from Transport Stream 380 which areidentified as co-cast packets into Transport Stream 380a. Each hand helddevice performs its own demultiplexing and decoding of the packetizedstream. This method permits the user view all co-cast content, whetherassociated with a particular channel or not.

Referring to FIG. 3c, FIG. 3c illustrates yet another embodiment of theSTB transmitting co-cast content to the handheld devices. In thisembodiment, the STB 320 merely rebroadcasts Transport Stream 385 asreceived. Each hand held device would be responsible for processing theentire packetized stream and performing demultiplexing and decoding asnecessary. This method is suboptimal in that it requires each handhelddevice to have a demultiplexer as powerful as the one in STB 320, whichwould substantially increase the cost of each handheld device

Referring again to FIG. 3, FIG. 3 further refers to another embodimentof the invention. STB 320 received the content via coaxial cable 310.STB 320 extracts Co-cast identification information from the requestedpackets. This co-cast identification, information includes, but is notlimited to a list of titles and locations of the co-cast content. Thelocation may be the internet, another network, the packetized contentbeing received by the coaxial cable 310, cached on STB 320, or from amass storage device attached to STB 320. STB 320 is wireless enabled.Examples of the extracted co-cast index information include, InternetURL's, DVD title, chapter, and time index information, Hard drive filelocation, etc. The co-cast index information is transmitted to one ormore wireless devices 390 via wireless transmitter 360. Each wirelessdevice 390 receives the identical list of co-cast content.

Wireless device 390 is wirelessly connected to both STB 320, theinternet via Router 382, or Tower 381, where Tower 381 can be a celltower or a WiMax tower. The user selects the desired content to beco-cast and hand held device 390 uses the co-cast index information toobtain the desired content.

Referring yet again to FIG. 3, in another embodiment of the invention,STB 320 is connected to the public internet 397 via connection means375. This permits STB 320 to obtain and transmit information from theinternet as well.

Referring yet again to FIG. 3, in another embodiment of the invention,STB 320 receives content from a mass storage device such as a harddrive, an optical drive, or a solid state memory device.

Referring to FIG. 4, FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of theinvention. At step 405, the STB broadcasts the list of available contentby reading the payload of the Co-cast Content Association Table. At step410 a first hand held device requests co-cast content associated withthe currently viewed television channel from the STB. At step 420 asecond hand held device simultaneously requests globally availableco-cast content from the STB. At step 445 one or more demultiplexersseparate the requested co-cast information from the packetized streamand broadcasts one or more transport streams. At step 450, the STBtransmits the co-cast information to the wireless handheld devices. Atstep 460 each hand held device receives the transmitted data, ignore thepackets not intended for it, and reconstructs the content.

Referring to FIG. 5, FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of the controllogic of the STB. At step 510, the STB send the input signal through ade-multiplexer and decryption device. At step 520, the STB transcodesthe signal into the format for the wireless device. At step 530, thesignal is re-packetized for streaming or downloading. At step 540, thesignal passes through the wireless interface. At step 550, the STBprocesses the return channel commands. At step 560 the system controllerwill instruct the transport demultiplexer 510 to extract the co-castchannel requested by the hand held device.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for of delivering program contentfrom a content provider to one or more hand held handheld wirelessdevices via a set top box (STB), the method comprising the steps of:saidthe STB receivesreceiving a transport stream,from the contentprovider; saidthe STB operable to recognize co-castprogrammingrecognizing Co-Cast information in athe transport stream,wherein the co-cast information comprises a Co-Cast Content AssociationTable that identifies a list of co-cast programming for playback on theone or more handheld wireless devices other than a television; saidtheSTB demultiplexing out athe Co-Cast Content Association Table; saidCo-Cast Content Association Table containing a list of all co-castprogramming availablefrom the transport stream; saidthe STB wirelesslybroadcastingtransmitting to the one or more hand heldhandheld wirelessdevices information corresponding to the list of co-cast programmingavailable to the one or more handheld wireless devices identified by theCo-Cast Content Association Table, where each hand held wireless devicedisplays the list of available co-cast programming; selecting on saidhand held wireless device one program; said hand held devicetransmitting the program request to the STB; saidthe STB receiving oneor more requests from the one or more hand held handheld wirelessdevices one or more requests identifying co-cast programming among thelist of co-cast programming available to the one or more handhelddevices; saidthe STB further demultiplexing out from the transportstream the requested co-cast programming identified by the one or morerequests; and re-multiplexesthe STB multiplexing the requested co-castprogramming demultiplexed from the transport stream into a co-casttransport stream and broadcasting said transmitting the co-castprogramming transport stream to each of the requesting hand held one ormore handheld wireless devices, wherein the co-cast programming isaudio/video (A/V) content.
 2. The method of claim 1 where, wherein theco-cast information is associated with a specific television program. 3.The method of claim 1 where, wherein the co-cast information is notassociated with a specific television program.
 4. The method of claim 1where, wherein the co-cast information was is introduced into thetransport stream in the a native format of the hand held wireless deviceone or more handheld wireless devices.
 5. The method of claim 1 where,wherein the hand held one or more handheld wireless devices transmittheir native format formats to the STB, which re-encodes the requestedco-cast information programming into the native format of thedestination hand held wireless device one or more handheld wirelessdevices, where said wherein the native format formats may be differentfrom one hand held device to another each other.
 6. The STB method ofclaim 1 where, wherein the STB is capable of configured tosimultaneously communicating communicate with more than one hand heldwireless device the one or more handheld wireless devices.
 7. The STBmethod of claim 1 where, wherein the STB outputs multiple single-programTransport Stream Streams.
 8. The STB method of claim 1 where, whereinthe STB outputs a single multiple-program Transport Stream.
 9. The handheld device method of claim 1 where, wherein the hand held device is thedestination one or more handheld wireless devices are destinations ofthe co-cast programming.
 10. A method for of delivering program contentfrom a content provider to one or more hand held handheld wirelessdevices via a set top box (STB), the method comprising the steps of:saidthe STB receivesreceiving a transport stream,from the contentprovider; saidthe STB operable to recognize co-castrecognizing Co-Castprogramming in athe transport stream, wherein the Co-Cast programmingcomprises a Co-Cast Content Association Table that identifies a list ofco-cast programming for playback on the one or more handheld wirelessdevices other than a television; saidthe STB demultiplexing out theCo-Cast programming, where said co-cast programming includes the Co-CastContent Association Table from the transport stream; saidthe STBre-multiplexesmultiplexing the requested co-castCo-Cast programming intoa co-cast transport stream,; the STB wirelessly broadcasting to the oneor more hand heldhandheld wireless devices the co-cast programming,where each hand held wireless device demultiplexes out the Co-CastContent Association Table, displays the list of available co-castprogramming, selecting one co-cast program; said wireless handheldfurther demultiplexing out said requested co-cast programming from thereceived stream; decoding and displaying said co-castprogrammingtransport stream, wherein the co-cast programming isaudio/video (A/V) content.
 11. A system for delivering content, thesystem comprising: a content provider configured to multiplex atransport stream, the transport stream comprising audio/video (AV)content, co-cast information, and co-cast content; and a STB configured:to receive the transport stream from the content provider, to recognizethe co-cast information in the transport stream, wherein the co-castinformation comprises a Co-Cast Content Association Table thatidentifies a list of co-cast programming for playback on the one or morehandheld devices other than a television, to demultiplex the Co-CastContent Association Table from the transport stream, to transmitinformation corresponding to the list of co-cast programming availableidentified by the Co-Cast Content Association Table, to receive one ormore requests identifying co-cast programming among the list of co-castprogramming available from the one or more handheld wireless devices, todemultiplex from the transport stream the co-cast programming identifiedby the one or more requests, to multiplex the co-cast programmingdemultiplexed from the transport stream into a co-cast transport stream,and transmit the co-cast transport stream to the one or more handheldwireless devices, wherein the co-cast programming is audio/video (A/V)content.
 12. A set top box (STB) configured to deliver content from acontent provider to one or more handheld wireless devices, the STBcomprising: a first receiver configured to receive a transport streamfrom the content provider, wherein the STB is configured to recognizeco-cast information in the transport stream, wherein the co-castinformation comprises a Co-Cast Content Association Table thatidentifies a list of co-cast programming for playback on the one or morehandheld wireless devices other than a television; a demultiplexerconfigured to demultiplex the Co-Cast Content Association Table from thetransport stream; a wireless communication interface configured totransmit to the one or more handheld wireless devices informationcorresponding to the list of co-cast programming available to the one ormore handheld wireless devices identified by the Co-Cast ContentAssociation Table and receive from the one or more handheld wirelessdevices one or more requests identifying co-cast programming among thelist of co-cast programming available to the one or more handhelddevices; and a multiplexer configured to multiplex co-cast programmingdemultiplexed from the transport stream into a co-cast transport stream,wherein the demultiplexer further is configured to demultiplex from thetransport stream the co-cast programming identified by the one or morerequests, wherein the wireless communication interface is furtherconfigured to transmit the co-cast transport stream to the one or morehandheld wireless devices, and wherein the co-cast programming isaudio/video (A/V) content.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein a headerof the co-cast information comprises an identifier configured toidentify a packet of the co-cast information as a co-cast packet. 14.The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more wireless devices arecomprised of one or more of a laptop, a personal computer (PC), apersonal digital assistant (PDA) and a mobile phone.
 15. The method ofclaim 10, wherein a header of the co-cast information comprises anidentifier configured to identify a packet of the co-cast information asa co-cast packet.
 16. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or morewireless devices are comprised of one or more of a laptop, a personalcomputer (PC), a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a mobile phone.17. The system of claim 11, wherein a header of the co-cast informationcomprises an identifier configured to identify a packet of the co-castinformation as a co-cast packet.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein theone or more wireless devices are comprised of one or more of a laptop, apersonal computer (PC), a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a mobilephone.
 19. The STB of claim 12, wherein a header of the co-castinformation comprises an identifier configured to identify a packet ofthe co-cast information as a co-cast packet.
 20. The STB of claim 12,wherein the one or more wireless devices are comprised of one or more ofa laptop, a personal computer (PC), a personal digital assistant (PDA)and a mobile phone.